


The Captain's Daughter

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: Space Pirates Without the Space Part [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Kissing, Meet-Cute, Pirate Buddy Aurinko, Pirate Vespa Ilkay, Some Fluff, Unfortunate Stowaway Vespa Ilkay, homoerotic sword fights guys come on, sword fights, this is very much a rom com with swords and pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: It wasn’t the best sleep of Vespa's entire life. By the time she woke up, she was pretty sure every single knot from the hammocks had somehow transplanted themselves into her shoulders. The faint sun that filtered down through the gun deck and into the hold was too bright and the inky shadows of the hull were too dark, and Vespa had to squint and groan just to glance around and remember where she was.Her biggest complaint, however, had to be the sharp tip of a sword pressed into her neck.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay
Series: Space Pirates Without the Space Part [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949893
Comments: 18
Kudos: 45





	The Captain's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> HOHOHOHOHO YOU GUYS ARENT READY
> 
> Content warnings for sword fights, alcohol mention

Vespa Ilkay knew better than to fall asleep while stowing away on a ship, let alone one laden with stolen goods and the kind of ammunition stocks only held by people expecting to be attacked. However, with the memory of her escape from the navy troops stationed at Port Rangia weighing upon her like an anchor and the easy rocking of the ship on a gentle sea lulling her eyes shut, the knotted pile of ripped hammocks beneath her felt more and more like a bed.

It wasn’t the best sleep of her entire life. By the time she woke up, she was pretty sure every single knot from the hammocks had somehow transplanted themselves into her shoulders. The faint sun that filtered down through the gun deck and into the hold was too bright and the inky shadows of the hull were too dark, and Vespa had to squint and groan just to glance around and remember where she was.

Her biggest complaint, however, had to be the sharp tip of a sword pressed into her neck.

“What the hell?” She jolted the moment the cold tap of metal against the dip of her clavicle, left open by her poet shirt, registered.

She could only scramble back so far, having tucked herself into a corner for the sake of staying hidden if anyone were to make their way into the hull to check the cargo. However, the few precious seconds she spared by backing up were likely enough to spare her life as well.

Between her motion and the heaving of her half-bared chest beneath the stranger’s sword, Vespa managed to throw her accoster off for long enough to grab her own blade and spring to her feet.

“I see you came prepared for a duel,” the crewmember, a young woman of about her age, grinned.

“You don’t seem too pissed about it,” Vespa snorted, though she knew better than to waste her time on words.

The shadow of the hull was thick and dreary, like the bottom of an oversteeped cup of tea. However, the equatorial sun bared its fangs through the even, prison bar slats of the ceiling, enough that Vespa could get a good look at her opponent before she drew her sword and lunged.

The serrated teeth of sunlight from up above had nothing on the young woman who parried her blow with a victorious shout. Her hair might as well have been fire, bright red and cast over one eyepatch-clad eye as if nature had seen fit to cast a gust of wind her way and blow her thick and lovely curls into just the right position. Vespa doubted any figurehead at the front of any ship could be so kindly windswept, nor bear such a flash of adventure in her eye.

Vespa knew for a fact she was a better swordsman than her opponent, but the glint of gunmetal in her bared teeth and the fire of victory in her eye made every slash of Vespa’s blade difficult enough to put them on even footing.

Ideally, Vespa would fight in enough silence that their struggles would go unnoticed until she could ransom the young woman in exchange for safe passage to the next port. She would grit her teeth and ignore the lightness of the pounding in her chest and the fact that the woman’s smile was making her palms sweat around the grip of her sword.

However, her opponent seemed determined to stop her from doing any of those things.

“Is there something I can call you, darling?” She asked with a spark-lit laugh after a particularly impressive piece of footwork.

“Why the hell do you care?” Vespa snapped back, her words breaking as she ducked behind a barrel of rum to dodge a blow. When she emerged once more, the woman caught her blade and pushed, sending her stumbling backwards instead of delivering what could have been a decently maiming strike.

“Haven’t you heard of me?” She chuckled. She paused for long enough for Vespa to raise her sword again before flipping her blade once in hand and lunging again.

“Should I have?”

“I’m Buddy Aurinko, terror of the seas,” Buddy grinned, and had the sharp, seagull cries of metal on metal not filled the room with their symphony, Vespa would have thought the sparks that splashed out from between them to have been borne from the traitorous organ within her own chest. “I keep the names of all my bested opponents tattooed up my arm.”

“You don’t have any tattoos,” Vespa pointed out a little too breathlessly, hoping just to pin it on the fight.

“A girl can dream,” Buddy shrugged. “Won’t you at least give me a name to put to that lovely face of yours?”

Vespa tried to time her inhales and exhales with the clashing of their swords against one another and the erratic drumming of their steps as they danced fore and aft, swords flying all the while. She tried to focus on the twitching of her wrist and the angle of her arm as she parried and parried and parried against an opponent who seemed to be aiming for her sword, rather than any vital organ.

However, the stupid thing in her chest decided it was best to find in ally in its mutiny against her. Unfortunately for Vespa, that meant her mind had become a traitor as well.

Whenever she tried to glance up at Buddy’s arm, her eyes lingered for far too long on the way her blouse fluttered around arms that were clearly well-muscled. When her collar slipped with the effort of pursuing Vespa’s blade, a near-faded scar came into view upon the cap of her shoulder. Despite the pain that must have accompanied the injury, the scar seemed to worship at her arm, as if it were blessed to be there at all. 

In a smarter world, Vespa was pretty sure most people who found themselves in the company of Buddy Aurinko would consider themselves blessed as well.

When she glanced back up at Buddy’s face, she wasn’t sure if it was the sparks dazzling in her eye like lightning bugs or the whipping of her hair with every strike or the buried-treasure smile that slashed across her face, but something made Vespa’s attention slip for just a moment too long. By the time she realized her mistake, the tip of Buddy’s sword was against her neck and the ship’s hull was against her back and she was pretty sure she would get to spend the last few moments of her life appreciating that dangerous grin up close.

“Well?” Buddy chuckled, her easy tone undercut by just how quickly her heart was beating where it was pressed against Vespa’s own. “Are you going to tell me your name or not?”

“Just kill me already,” Vespa growled.

Buddy’s grip went a little slack in surprise. It was exactly what Vespa needed to throw her back and catch her sword before it could even manage to rise. Whatever bolt of lightning that had struck Buddy into her adrenaline chasing duel seemed to have spread to her opponent, though, rather than reeking of ozone and crackling upon the ears, the hull was bright with the perfume of saltwater and the music of clattering blades.

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Just Kill Me Already,” Buddy returned flatly, though her grin did not waver. In fact, her brow drew down and her teeth bared in a look somewhere between focus and victory as she parried Vespa’s strikes. “Quite an uncommon name. I suppose you’re not from around here.”

It was a bit of a dirty trick, but if Buddy was going to distract her with that damn smile, Vespa might as well play along. With a kick, she knocked over a container of heavy, circular musket rounds that went rolling all across the rocking floor like a child’s spilled marbles. However, between the dark and the side to side breaths of the ship, they were much easier to trip on. 

Buddy made it all of two strides before falling, and for the first time, something that might have been fear blossomed in her eye.

Before Vespa could even consider the point of the duel or her plan or her common sense, she caught Buddy by the wrist to cushion her fall. Buddy’s eye remained wide and her mouth ajar in surprise, though she had frozen mid-fall for all of a second before Vespa remembered herself and lowered her to the ground, replacing the friendly grip with a sword to Buddy’s heaving chest.

“Vespa Ilkay,” she returned, a crooked grin easing itself across her lips as she strode a little closer.

To her surprise, Buddy was grinning as well.

“Well, Vespa Ilkay,” she breathed. “Why don’t you help me up?”

“Huh?”

Buddy elbowed Vespa’s sword off of her by the blunt edge and sat up, though not before holding out an expectant hand. Out of shock or admiration or some other thing Vespa didn’t want to think about, Vespa gripped her hand and pulled her up to her feet.

When she had righted herself once more, Buddy gave Vespa’s hand a firm squeeze and shook it while Vespa did her best to pretend she wasn’t seeing stars.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Congratulating you on a duel well won,” Buddy smiled. “What else would I be doing?”

“I dunno,” Vespa huffed. “Begging for your life or something.”

“Oh,” Buddy considered, tilting her head in faux-thought. “Well the thing is, Vespa Ilkay—”

“Vespa,” she corrected.

“The thing is, darling,” Buddy ignored her. “I wasn’t under the impression you were going to kill me at all. You seemed to be having far more fun than all the other stowaways I’ve killed in the past.”

“What?” Vespa started, her hand flying back to her sword until Buddy laughed, a song as sweet as the sight of land on a distant horizon.

“In fact, I think I might put in a good word with the captain,” Buddy mused. “He could use another good swordsman, especially if he’s so adamant on not giving me any good opponents.”

“Why the hell would he listen to you?”

Buddy’s grin could’ve made the sun shudder.

“I’m his daughter, Vespa,” she chuckled. “And more importantly, his first mate.”

“Huh,” Vespa felt herself breathe as she raked her eyes up and down Buddy for any sign that it might have been a fib. When she found none, she nodded. “So you’re really just not gonna keep fighting me?”

“Excuse me?”

Vespa felt that same victorious grin she had worn while winning the duel begin to flicker across her face once more.

“Well, you said your dad wouldn’t let you have any real opponents, right?”

“Correct,” Buddy returned slowly.

“And I mean, I’m not blind, Bud,” Vespa chuckled. “I think you were having just about as much fun as I was. Not at the beginning, there, but you really know how to make a lady feel special.”

“I know how to make a special lady feel special,” Buddy corrected. “I believe I’m beginning to see your point.”

“When exactly do you need to put that word in with your dad?” Vespa laughed, her hand creeping its way back towards her sword.

“It depends,” Buddy beamed, drawing. “How long do you think it’ll take you to lose?”

When Vespa awoke that morning with a sword to her throat, she hadn’t expected to fall back into the same pile of hammocks again. However, duels had a tendency to meander, especially when they were more an impressive performance of swordsmanship than an actual act of violence. 

After enough minutes laughing and taunting and making more verbal jabs than physical ones, Vespa couldn’t even complain when she tripped over her own bullet-shaped trap and accidentally dragged them both crashing into the rope pile once more.

“Shit,” Vespa breathed, unsure of whether the word had been knocked or laughed out of her chest. Either way, it was strained, for she had accidentally clung to Buddy through the fall and brought them down together. “Sorry about that, Bud.”

Buddy wasn’t laughing.

“Bud?”

She closed her mouth, which had fallen ajar with breathlessness and something that Vespa wasn’t too hopeful to believe was awe. However, her wide eye with its whisky dark iris remained trained on Vespa, running worshipful lines up her sternum and collarbone until they climbed her neck and settled atop her exertion-parted lips.

“You’re awfully close to me, darling,” she murmured. Somewhere, a million miles away, Vespa heard her sword clatter to the ground. It was hard to focus on anything but the sweet seabreeze of her voice or the way one of her hands had reached up to Vespa’s brow and begun to brush sweat-slick strands of hair from her forehead.

“I am,” Vespa confirmed with more of a stutter than she wanted to admit. “I can move, if you want.”

“Only if you want, Vespa,” Buddy returned.

Vespa had been at sea for long enough to have heard her fair share of stories about mermaids and sirens and girls back home, but she doubted any of them could hold a candle to Buddy Aurinko in that moment. 

Her chest heaved while her loose blouse wavered with the gentle movements of a windswept sail. Meanwhile, her expression blinked away a hopeful and questioning look to replace it with a smile. If Vespa hadn’t already been burning alive under the gentle pilgrimage of Buddy Aurinko’s fingertips atop her head, she was sure that grin would have set her alight.

“I—” Vespa swallowed, pausing for a long moment when words refused to move past her throat. When Buddy began to roll away, however, they came out in a sudden stream. “You don’t have to go anywhere, Bud.”

“I don’t?” Buddy chuckled. “Why, Vespa, I thought I had to go ask my father to spare your life.”

“Maybe not right now,” Vespa offered. “Maybe you can—uh—stay a little while.”

Buddy’s smile had only faltered for a single, thoughtful moment, but when it bloomed again with all the fervency of a summer rose, Vespa felt herself let out an unintentional sigh.

“Do you see something you like, darling?”

“Your mouth,” Vespa blurted out. “Shit.”

Buddy laughed at that, trying and failing to stifle the noise behind one of her hands. Vespa heard herself chuckling as well, convinced into doing so when Buddy stifled the untidy sound into Vespa’s shoulder. However, by the time she raised her head again, her grin had gone heady and sweet and her hand had made its way down from Vespa’s hair to her face.

“Well,” she mused, shaking off the last of her laughter. “If you like my mouth so much, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get to know it a bit better.”

“Goddamn,” Vespa chuckled, though the sound muffled itself away into the sweet embrace of Buddy Aurinko’s clever lips on her own before she could do anything more than breathe the word out like a heretic’s prayer, for she doubted there was any holier sensation in this world than Buddy’s hands on her face and back and her lips pressing a benediction into Vespa’s.

“Holy shit,” Vespa felt herself gasp, and once again, Buddy let out a laugh like wedding bells. Vespa was pretty sure her life would have been wasted if she didn’t spend it in pursuit of hearing that sound again.

“Am I truly that talented?” Buddy chuckled. “Perhaps I will have to get your name tattooed on my arm.”

“You didn’t beat me at anything,” Vespa snorted.

“Perhaps not, but I do believe you’ve surrendered, in one way or another,” Buddy grinned.

“Shut up,” Vespa laughed.

“I believe you’re going to have to make me.”

“I don’t think I have it in me for another duel,” Vespa chuckled.

“I didn’t ask you to duel me.”

Vespa raised an eyebrow.

“Was that an admission of defeat I heard from Buddy Aurinko, terror of the seas?” She snorted.

“Oh, hush,” Buddy smiled, though the words didn’t have long to linger in the air before they melted back into Vespa’s lips.

It was strange to think she was back where she had started the morning, though with a few fears traded for a few hopes and the dark of the hold feeling a little less cold and a little less empty. Her mood was helped significantly by the sensation of something far kinder than a sword being pressed against her jaw.

**Author's Note:**

> HELL YEAH PIRATES!! i listened to so many sea shanties writing this shout out to the longest johns for a good title song even if it is about a cat-o-nine
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill make ye walk the dreaded plank! ARRR im so sorry
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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